


On this day, we give thanks

by Jester85



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Sexual Tension, Thanksgiving, no real smut, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 16:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16706263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jester85/pseuds/Jester85
Summary: Eames finds the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade confounding, and a little bit terrifying.Arthur is his inscrutable self.  But maybe a tad less than usual.





	On this day, we give thanks

It was around the point that Paw Patrol was replaced by vaguely demonic-looking elves, floating over the streets with maniacal grins, as if poised to swoop down and devour the crowds below, that Eames decided this whole Thanksgiving nonsense had crossed the line from merely confounding into kind of terrifying.

The Englishman jerked as if coming out of a trance, the trance of too much turkey---he swears they lace the things with sedatives, the poor birds are probably raised on a diet of cornmeal and Somnacin and their ground-up brethren, and isn't that a cheery thought---and letting the dull horror of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade wash over him in a slow-moving, inexorable wave of dread.

"Honestly, Arthur," he sighs, unfolding his bulk from where it was sprawled lazily into the armchair, "You can't actually enjoy this shite?"

His viewing companion, of course, was as inscrutable as ever, sitting primly in the opposite chair, suitjacket draped carefully over the sofa and sleeves rolled up but otherwise impeccably dressed, hair perfectly gelled into place, viewing the legion of doom crawling past onscreen with an idle curiosity.  "It's tradition," the American finally vaguely offered.

_Hmmph._ Eames warred between feeling vindicated about Arthur's lack of imagination---the startling ingenuity of that zero-gravity elevator drop notwithstanding---and the sting of disappointment he always feels when he fails to weedle any scrap of personal information out of Arthur.

But then, they aren't even meant to be here anyway, so it wouldn't do to let either reaction show, lest that lead them down a slippery slope and the unacceptable risk of Arthur getting any inkling in his dull little head of just how much inexplicable delight Eames takes in his company.

It's a hotel room in Boston, currently snowed in and iced over like a scene out of The Day After Tomorrow, the kind of popcorn trash Eames has an inexplicable affection for and which he's sure Arthur would scorn.  Arthur probably only listens to classical music and goes to foreign arthouse films with subtitles.

Being cooped up in here together hadn't been how either of them intended to spend the weekend, but well, a job that went sideways once they came topside facing a lot of guns and some angry gangsters Eames had rather thought he'd given the slip in Los Angeles, and A Series of Unfortunate Events, as he'd cheerfully labeled it, had landed he and Arthur here, sharing turkey and monosyllabic conversation, once Arthur's clear overreaction to said unfortunate events had subsided enough to let him make up his mind whether to point his gun at the gangsters or at Eames.

* * *

_"Really, it's no bother, Darling," Eames had drawled as he dropped his briefcase with the same graceless thud as he settled his bulk into the armchair, "I am capable of finding my own way."_

_"Safety in numbers, Mr. Eames," Arthur huffed gruffly, brow furrowed in that look of intense concentration he sometimes had that Eames found entirely too fascinating, stalking to the windows, peeking suspiciously out the closed slats, checking the room for any bugs or surveillance with a brisk efficiency that was weirdly mesmerizing to watch._

_"I'm a big boy, Arthur," Eames groused, idly removing his gun from the back of his trousers and checking the clip.  Then, a notch lower and more sincerely than anything he'd said to Arthur all day, "I would hardly be in a position to complain if you'd kicked me to the curb, given I did bring rather an unholy mess upon us---"_

_Arthur slowly turned, face scrunched up in a mix of confusion and looking more offended than any of Eames' sexual innuendos, flirtations, or piss-taking had ever managed to do._

_"Eames.  You're a royal pain in my ass, but I wasn't just going to leave you for dead."_

_Eames blinked.  Arthur's tone, usually carefully neutral, was confused, offended, even a trifle....hurt?  And really he didn't know what to reply to that, so he just gave one more languid blink._

_"Glad to hear it, darling."_

* * *

"Oh, Arthur," Eames sighed with a long-suffering tone of condescending pity around the time that Snoopy drifted into view.  "You poor sodding Yanks.  You grew up with this, didn't you?"

Arthur fiddled fussily with his cufflink.  "Like I said," the American hummed noncommittally, "It's tradition."

Eames blinked again, side-eyeing Arthur.  He'd thought Arthur was speaking in abstract.  He hadn't realized Arthur was alluding to his own familial traditions.  It was a tiny scrap, but one that conjured fertile mental imagery of little boy Arthur, probably precociously adorable in gelled hair and little bowties, sitting raptly in front of the family telly watching the floats go by, and that generated a warm fuzzy feeling in the forger's chest that he didn't quite know how to deal with.

"Is it still, then?" he inquired carefully after a moment, because he's a gambling man and he can never seem to stop pushing his luck with Arthur.

Arthur shoots him a curious glance, then huffs a humorless chuckle.  "I don't exactly spend a lot of time watching parades, Eames."

Another tidbit, and leaving the Mister off his name!  Eames sits very stoically and apathetically and proudly resists the childish impulse to pump his fist in the air.

"You know what your problem is, Arthur?" he intrudes into the beat of silence that falls then, because otherwise the room is filled with nothing but the specter of horrifying cartoon figures invading New York, and that is not to be tolerated. 

"Besides being a stick in the mud with no imagination?" Arthur grouses with no real heat behind it.  So Cobb shared that remark.  Just one more reason to dislike the crazy bastard.

Eames shifts slightly in his chair, twisted half around to face Arthur.  "You need to learn to get more fun out of life."

Arthur looks back a beat too long.  Eames feels a little tingle of excitement.  "I have fun plenty."

"Do you?  Tell me, Darling, when's the last time you got laid?"

Arthur looks away, huffs a small laugh that sounds a little incredulous.  "Are you offering?"

"Might be," Eames shrugs flippantly.

Arthur doesn't look back for a minute, and when he does, his gaze is dark, calculating.

"Stop overthinking," Eames sighs.  "We're shut in this ruddy hotel with nothing to do besides watching a rather terrifying parade on the telly, or each other, and I know which sounds like the more pleasant prospect."

Arthur's eyes are sharp and dark.  A tiny smile tugs at one corner of his mouth.  "Don't expect this to mean we're married or anything," he says warningly, and Eames barks a sharp laugh.

"Oh Arthur.  If your lovemaking skills are equal to your wit and good humor, I kick myself for not propositioning you sooner."

Arthur springs rather abruptly out of his seat as if coming to a snap decision, quickly but fastidiously undoing his tie.  "You've been propositioning me for years."

"And you've tragically denied me," Eames shot back, lurching upright and shrugging out of his delightfully hideous paisley, noting with a little smirk at how Arthur's darkening gaze falls over the sprawl of ink over muscles revealed underneath. 

"I can't play too easy to get," Arthur snipes, rolling up his tie and laying it on his seat, nimble fingers working down his buttons.  "Your ego's inflated enough as it is."  His voice is as level as if he's discussing research on a mark's bank records, but Eames catches the slightly higher pitch, and he relishes the challenge it's going to be to make Arthur fall apart.

They're both shirtless, Eames shucking carelessly out of his clothes, Arthur of course meticulously folding his dress shirt, the Englishman now taking his turn eyeing up Arthur's slender, supple body. 

"Eames," Arthur says again in that cautioning tone, and Eames reluctantly drags his eyes back up to meet Arthur's eyes.  "You know this won't mean anything."

There's an unspoken question in there, and Eames bites down the slight disappointment at what a stickler Arthur is being on that point.  So he flashes a crooked, gappy-toothed grin, yanking Arthur flush against him, rewarded with the hardness brushing against his own and smirking at the intake of breath when he clamps a hand possessively over Arthur's arse. 

"Of course, Darling.  All the same, don't beat yourself up if you feel the need to come back for more after this.  It'd be entirely understandable."

Arthur rolls his eyes, opens his mouth to make some snide retort, but Eames dives into the gap, and swallows it with a kiss.

 


End file.
